21st July 2005
Swig makes a splash with £50,000 funding for Saltash company.

A Saltash-based manufacturing company which is fast becoming Europe’s leading specialist in swimming pool play equipment is looking forward to an extremely buoyant future after receiving £50,000 worth of development funding from South West Investment Group.

Manuplas, which currently employs 24 people, has secured over £350,000 worth of investment to help extend its manufacturing capabilities including the purchase of new CNC equipment.

The company produces a wide range of products including navigation and mooring buoys and fendering and flotation solutions for the marine industry in addition to the swimming pool play equipment which it produces and markets under the name of Hippo Leisure Products.

As one of only four companies worldwide with the technology to produce the swimming pool floats, slides and toys, Hippo Leisure’s reputation in the leisure industry is growing fast.

According to Manuplas company secretary Claire Mollet, SWIG’s Objective One-backed funding was essential to the company’s development.

“ We were introduced to SWIG by Business Link and are absolutely delighted with the funding which has provided a significant proportion of the development funding we needed to put our expansion plan into operation.”

Andrew Wickham, who established the company in Saltash in 2003 says he was impressed by SWIG’s quick grasp of the company’s operations and plans.

“ It was a pleasure to work so closely with professionals who clearly understood the business and where we wanted to go”, he says.

“ The new equipment we are purchasing thanks to the funding will open up whole new product lines for us that will enable us to offer low volume, specialist cutting and shaping of a variety of materials from foam to metal.

“ Our Hippo Leisure products are becoming increasingly popular with leisure centres and water parks all over the UK. We are also seeing increasing interest from around the world for our products. To be able to offer customers the opportunity to have play equipment of any shape size or style is great for them and as a result, great for us,” said Andrew.

South West Investment Group Fund Manager John Peters believes the funding will help the company to establish itself as a global player in the swimming leisure sector.

“ The company is developing an extremely good reputation in the marine and the leisure sector and we could see the potential for growth.

“ It is an exciting company so as the region’s leading gap funding provider, we were delighted to complete the funding package which will help them develop the business, ” said John.